Kaye’s latest diva is delusional

A challenged songbird: Judy Kaye stars in “Souvenir,” presented by American Conservatory Theater. (Courtesy photo)

SAN FRANCISCO — Judy Kaye’s credits read like an introduction to American musical theater, featuring everything from a tough-talking Rizzo in “Grease” to the sultry “Kismet” siren Lalume.

“I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve never been pigeonholed into any particular kind of role,” Kaye says.

“After Carlotta, there was a period were I was sort of not hirable because people were convinced I was an opera singer,” she says of her Tony-winning role as the over-the-top diva in “The Phantom of the Opera.”

She has, in fact, performed opera, in addition to cabaret, an active recording career, and that mainstay of New York actors — guest spots on different flavors of “Law & Order.”

“I have this crazy résumé that’s all over the map,” she says, laughing. “Part of that is because I rarely say no when something is offered! If I have time ... why not?”

The versatile actress has also lived that classic showbiz fable of the understudy becoming the star. In 1978 she stepped into the role of Lily Garland two months into the run of “On the Twentieth Century,” after Madeline Kahn and the show’s producers reached irreconcilable differences.

Last year, San Francisco audiences were treated to Kaye’s saucy take on Nellie Lovett, the murderous pie-maker accomplice to Sweeney Todd, when the show’s national tour launched from American Conservatory Theater.

Kaye returns to the theater this week in her Tony-nominated turn as the lead in Stephen Temperley’s “Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins.”

“What a balancing act!” Kaye says. “If I spent the rest of my career ping-ponging between Nellie and Florence, with the odd bit here and there, I would be so happy.”

“They are my two favorite roles of my career — completely different from each other and yet sharing some essential qualities,” she says. “They’re both fantastically written characters.”

As its subtitle indicates, “Souvenir” is less a biographical work than a glimpse into the psyche of the spectacularly untalented singer who, in 1944, managed to sell out a concert in Carnegie Hall.

Kaye is generous about her current alter ego’s ambitions.

“I think the desire to perform runs very deep,” she says. “Florence believes she is a great artist and that her audience comes to share in the beauty of great music and to learn from her. She did not have the support of her family, so she just waited until she had the means and the freedom to pursue her dream. For better or worse, you have to admire that.”

IF YOU GO

Souvenir

Where: American Conservatory Theater, 405 Geary St., San Francisco
When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays; closes March 15 
Tickets: $17 to $82
Contact: (415) 749-2228; www.act-sf.org